There is nothing better during the summer than having the #FreedomToFind, so that’s exactly what we decided to do when we shot this lookbook.

We piled Amanda, Zara, and Kala into a friends jeep and took a little road trip to some iconic LA spots, starting with a rad backyard ramp (complete with a tree house!), after a few hours we got hungry, so we decided to grab some (ok, a box) donuts at this iconic LA spot, and then hit the beach for a late day skate sesh before the sun went down. A perfect LA adventure.

When LIFETIME TV asked me to style a series of #Fempire moments with my brand Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word to highlight female empowerment, I was beyond stoked. To see Venice Skatepark filled with only girls skating from dawn to dusk is not something you ever see – thanks to Lifetime TV this happened.

The first #fempire spot rolled out this weekend on Lifetime TV – maybe you caught it? If not, we have it here. This spot features Japanese ripper Sky Brown – at just 8 years old she is taking the skating world by storm and has some other big dreams as well!

Also featured in the shots above are Hunter Long, Minna Stess, Jordyn Barratt, Quinne Daniels, Vianez Morales & Emma Houle. Such a rad day filming with these girls and the Lifetime TV Crew.

I finally had some time off from styling shoots and took a week long break over the holiday to skateboard through the south. Got to experience some great locations, have a lot of fun, and remembered that it’s damn cold skating through intersections at 7 AM when you have wind chill going on. (You tend to forget that living in California most of the year). Now it’s back to work and working on estimates, pulling wardrobe for upcoming shoots and making each shoot a success.

Now it’s back to work, cranking out estimates, pulling wardrobe for upcoming shoots and making each shoot day with my clients a success.

The photo I created for my social media channels to announce the NYX Snapchat takeover

NYX Cosmetics announcement on their Twitter page for the Snapchat takeover

A little teaser of what was to come…

I did a Snapchat takeover awhile back for large beauty based group called BeautyCon, it went so well & I had such a great time doing it, I knew I wanted to do more. So I reached out to NYX Cosmetics (a young and hip brand of cosmetics under the Loreal umbrella) to see if they’d be interested in having me take over their social media at the Vans US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, which is THE biggest surf/skate summer party of the year. The women’s skateboarding event within the US Open is called the Vans Park Series, and it is a very important qualifier for the Pro and AM skaters that want to make the championships in Sweden. Only 10 girls will qualify out of a field of 36+ so nerves run high.

After getting the green light from NYX via email, we set up a meeting to discuss what they wanted me to try and capture, what my ideas where, who their audience was, hours I would be covering the women’s skateboarding event, and most importantly, the parameters of the content I would be posting.

It can be scary for a large company to give someone their password and have you takeover their social media. You really need to have you own brand dialed in on all your social media sites (twitter, instagram, periscope, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat) so they can see what you do, and how you represent yourself, before representing them to millions of viewers. Most times beauty bloggers are the ones tapped for these “takeovers”, and they don’t cover events like surf/skate – so this was a new realm for them to trust me with.

To give you the idea of reach NYX Cosmetics has, here are just a couple stats; their Instagram has 8 Million flowers with interaction rates ranging from 40,000 to over six figures on each post. On Snapschat they are in the top three of all beauty brands using the platform. That can be terrifying information if you start thinking about making sure you don’t plummet their viewership.

The beauty and fashion followers in the world of social media are very fickle – and now I’m here pitching an idea about “skater girl style” – which I really feel is something viewers will love, but you just never know. But I do know if I want to keep teens and 20 somethings engaged for six long hours I’d better have a great mix of content to keep them coming back as the Snapchat story progresses throughout the day.

Vans also had to approve the Snapchat takeover as we’d be doing it from their event, luckily they readily agreed, and could not have been more accommodating. Armed with my VIP deck pass, my game plan was to do a mix of make-up and beauty, rad girls skateboarding, and some quick sound bites, as well as trying to work in the NYX product a few times so it appeared natural and not forced. Tough to do when the girls are practicing hard for three hours in the hot sun and then competing for another two hours and their focus is intense. But by working around the girls heat times and practice schedules, I was able to get some “one on one” content, action shots and video during competition, and even a quick and fun beauty tutorial from one of the skater girls. Mr. Steve Van Doren appeared for a cameo at one point to welcome the viewers to the finals of the Vans Park Series, which was a cool sound bite to have as well.

We followed the story right up through the finals and onto the podium with two of the pro skater girls doing the sign off “goodbye and thanks for watching us here at the Vans Park Series!” to let Snapchat viewers know we were done for the day.

Final results were over 50,000 views per snap! So NYX was thrilled with the results and has asked me to come back and do more in the near future. The skater girls loved the cosmetics NYX sent over for them, I saw that a lot of them watched the Snapchat later that night so it appealed to both audiences – which opened up skateboarding to people who may not know about these rad girls, and the skaters now are very familiar with NYX as a brand that supports what they do. The ability to bring diverse sections of people together through social media is amazing, a great branding tool, and a way to open up future partnerships for all involved.

I’d like to thank NYX Cosmetics for seeing my vision and bringing me in to do the takeover, Vans for their openness and hospitality, The Boardr for everything they do to make the contests run so smoothly, and to all the skater girls who so willingly gave their time and were genuinely excited to be part of the day. You girls are amazing!